Skellie/fishy-mancer weapons

The fishymancer guide: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?349093-Fishymancer-Version-2-1 advices one to use arm of king leoric for main weapon and beast for switch and mentions only homuncolus for shield.
The way i read it is that arm of king leoric is only used when summoning and beast is the weapon to wear most of the time - with this is in mind wouldn't it be cheaper and just as good to use a spirit shield instead of homuncolus with arm of king leoric and wouldnt it be even better using a shrunken head with +summoning skills and +skellies and +skellie mastery?

That guide is primarily for un-twinked or medium gear hardcore players. It isn't very accurate for a high end character.

Homonculus is okay. Personally I don't use it. Spirit monarch > all, and you don't need blocking.
With magefist/trang gloves, arachs, 35' spirit you get 75 fcr which is a big help, and enables you to fill in the rest of the slots with non fcr gear, ie. shako, enigma, mara's, 2 SOJs.

Main weapon is always beast for obvious reasons. Again, leoric isn't needed on switch. Call to arms is much better. The shield for the switch can be a spirit or lidless wall or some magic shrunken head with +skills as you mentioned. I use Splendor in a +3 RS/+1 SM head. Again it doesn't really matter if your skellies are lvl 40 or 45. At high gear, this build isn't about them, it's about merc and CE, skeletons are just there to tank.

This. You can get the merc swinging for 2 or 3k average damage, with Amplify Damage, is more than enough to start the corpse chain. I have Guardian'd several of these characters with nothing more than a starter 'Insight' stick. Make the CV/CA/pick your favorite/first Ethereal Elite 4os Polearm when you find it. All other gear is just there for survival/comfort.

While I agree that Breath of the Dying is probably the best thing for a summoning necromancer's merc, I'll note that I've also used Obedience and it works nicely. Definitely better than Insight or Pride. I might even prefer it to Infinity (depends how highly one regards the Conviction aura).

I'll admit it: I never saw the reason for all the hating on Arm of King Leoric. It gives +skills. Summoners really like +skills. It's good. I found one with my first paladin or druid or something a long, long time ago, and gave it to my first summoner to complete Hell, using it pretty much without a switch the whole time. I did later try Beast on the switch, and kept it mainly because it's a good option for killing bosses faster by having the necro join in the melee. I really think if I wanted to do another summoner some day (I like them, but they're extremely reliant on Corpse Explosion to avoid falling asleep in Hell), I'd still go with Arm of King Leoric.

I just started hell and it's not going well ... merc in particular is dying too much.

Click to expand...

Some of those are names for "rare" weapons. Someone else probably knows more details about those, but my understanding is that they're pretty variable. Just knowing the names probably doesn't tell anyone which is best.

I guess I should reframe the question. Is the damage point more important than, for example, life leech? If an item has 4% life leech but low damage, does that make it more desirable than an item with high damage and no leech?

If you're having problems with your merc dying, you're probably going to want your merc to have some source of life leech. It doesn't have to come from the weapon necessarily (for example, you could get it from a Vampire Gaze helm), although that's the most likely source. Attack rate is another important consideration.

I guess I should reframe the question. Is the damage point more important than, for example, life leech? If an item has 4% life leech but low damage, does that make it more desirable than an item with high damage and no leech?

Click to expand...

For most chars having some sort of life leech is the top priority along with resists. But for necros if your lad has comrades to help him share the blows, then raw DPS is more important so just dmg and attack speed is more important.